


snoop dogg and other plants he purchased

by yawnbot



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Medicine, Plants, Strangers to Lovers, basically karkat is a tired employee at a garden store and dave is a customer, dave gets surgery so if you dont like hospitals, really gay, well technically its a garden shop, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yawnbot/pseuds/yawnbot
Summary: “Do’ya have anything that’s like, super fuckin’ hard to kill? Like impossible. Mission: Impossible- Don’t Kill A Plant. That kinda thing?” he says, gesturing reservedly with his hands as he speaks, a light southern drawl slurring his words together. You continue to stare, unsure how to respond to something so incredibly stupid.





	snoop dogg and other plants he purchased

Tuesdays are usually a slow day for you. The charmingly outmoded, and horrifically small, garden shop you manage doesn’t garner a particularly large crowd on most days, but Tuesdays have always seemed the emptiest.  Manage is the wrong word for your position, seeing as far as you know you are literally the only person employed, and the owner of the store has fucked off to Who-Knows-Where, Florida for the winter months. You’re more of a 3-in-1 CEO, COO, and CFO, as far as you’re concerned. Company President Karkat, that’s a name that sounds more accurate. Six days a week, it’s just you, the plants, and whatever idiot decides to come shopping for gardening supplies in the winter, all day long.

This is what leaves you standing here, trying to stay occupied, on this specific chilly Tuesday. Absentmindedly you are deadheading a peace lily you have growing in a small clay pot towards the back of the building. The handheld shears you're using are melded into the shape of your palm from overuse and the worn plasticy handle feels familiar in your grip. You’re nowhere near a clock, and your gloved hands will never be able to unlock your phone (not like you’d want to, your gloves are dirty as hell, like fuck you’re letting them anywhere near your overpriced piece of Apple garbage) but you’d hazard a guess that it’s nearing 6:00 pm: your closing time, thank God. You haven’t seen a single customer in several hours, which wasn’t unusual, but still frustrating. That said, if someone walked in before you managed to lock the door, you might throw a shitfit. The amount of homework from your online university classes that you had waiting for you on your banged up desk in your banged up apartment was taunting you even from several blocks away. As if jinxed by your thoughts, the tiny, rusted bell hanging above the door jingles menacingly, announcing the entrance of a customer. Fuck your life. With a final, far too aggressive snip, you turn to face the entrance of the store, and give the tensest smile you can manage.

“Hello, welcome in. Is there anything I can help you find?” you ask through clenched teeth. Standing by the door, looking extremely out of place, is a young guy. He's probably about your age, maybe even attended the same university as you. Nervously, he wrung his hands, head swiveling around as he surveyed the store. Blonde hair was poking out of a soft looking red beanie and down to his eyes, or rather, where his eyes would be, were they not obscured by a deep black pair of sunglasses. Instead of winter apparel, he's clothed in a worn denim jacket atop a deep red hoodie, which you stare at incredulously. He looks like the skateboard hipster douchebag of your fucking nightmares. At this point he turns his head towards you, his mouth a thin line, eyebrows furrowed above his glasses.

“Do’ya have anything that’s like, super fuckin’ hard to kill? Like impossible. Mission: Impossible- Don’t Kill A Plant. That kinda thing?” he says, gesturing reservedly with his hands as he speaks, a light southern drawl slurring his words together. You continue to stare, unsure how to respond to something so incredibly stupid. After a moment, you nod, leading him towards the succulents on a bench at the right of the store, hurriedly explaining the wonders of them and the ease of their care. The entire time you speak to him, the boy nods, hands switching from his pockets, to fidgeting in front of him, and back again. By the time you’re finished with your explanation, he’s scooped up a particularly hardy succulent, a jade plant, to be more specific, and he follows you with it, like a duckling, to the cash register at the back of the store. As you typed in the code of the plant, weighing it and calculating the total, (and glancing longingly at the time, 6:23 pm, you could be at home in your pajamas pretending to study right now) he began to talk again.

“So uh, I’m super shitty with plants. Like, dude. I’m a plant serial killer basically, but I’m super hype about this guy. I saw this store and I was like, my friend Jade likes plants, maybe it’s time I try to become a father again. And whadaya know, there’s a jade plant. It’s like fuckin’ destiny, dude. Fuckin’ Romeo and Juliet y’know? Written in the stars or whatever that play’s about. Or maybe she's just named after jade plants. Anyway. I think I’m gonna name my son, this plant here is my son if you weren’t aware, Snoop Dogg. I fuckin’ love Snoop Dogg. We’re going to get family photos taken this afternoon, then we might get some ice cream and play some catch. Snoop Dogg. Do you think that’s a good name, uh…” Here he pauses, as if you’re going to throw your own name at him. You choose to instead fix him with a glare and push the plant- Snoop Dogg- towards him.

“Have a nice day!” you say testily. He freezes for a second, as though suddenly becoming aware of his surroundings, and then nods curtly. With both hands, he cradles the plant- Snoop Dogg-to his chest, and then rushes out the door, mumbling a ‘thank you’ as the bell jingles. You lock the door as fast as humanly possible behind him and sigh in relief. That dude was fucking weird.

* * *

 

It’s the same week, a Friday this time, when he returns. It’s an hour and a half before closing and you’re speaking animatedly with one of your regular customers, a nice old woman who lives nearby. She’s grown a beautiful spread of English primrose this season, and she had just finished scrolling through the photos on her phone with you. Now, you’re discussing spring plans for her garden. She often asked what you would like to see, knowing you’re an apartment dweller without space to keep many plants of your own, and you were happy to engage her, basically begging her to grow your favorites so you could live vicariously through her pictures. Of course, it’s then that the bell jingles, and there he is. He’s standing awkwardly by the door, hands shoved in the pockets of the same denim jacket, this time layered over a sweater. His shaded eyes lock onto your face and he tilts his chin back in a sort of ‘sup’ nod. You scowl, and the old woman chuckles, gathering her bags and bidding you goodbye. She quietly wishes you luck and you could die right there. As soon as she’s gone, the guy opens his mouth.

“Hey,” he says simply.

“Looks like you figured out how to visit a store before it closes,” you respond vindictively. His face flushes a dainty red and you feel accomplished, despite knowing that if you were anything but Company President Karkat, this customer service would be atrocious. You quickly tack on, “What can I help you find?”

“I killed Snoop Dogg,” with this statement, he does the sign of the cross over his chest, and you definitely do not notice the rough and calloused appearance of his pale hands (musician?), “I need something harder to kill.”

“I suggest a fake plant.” You roll your eyes, turning around to reach for your handheld shears. If you had to deal with this again, you might as well do something productive while you do.

“It wasn’t my fault, I’m innocent,” he says defensively, putting his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “Don’t arrest me officer, I’m too sensitive for the big house. I’m a fragile guy. Plus, there’s no way I can fit my set up in those tiny fuckin’ cells. You didn’t even read me my Miranda Rights. This is fucked up. The whole justice system is fucked up, like, it’s so messed up that-” The garden shears in your hands snap loudly around the stem you’re trimming, startling him out of his tangent. “I’m sorry, that was stupid, I uh,” he hesitates, and you turn to him, raising an eyebrow, as he adds “I’m Dave.” He’s fidgeting with his beanie and looking at you expectantly. You sigh, why do you have to be such a fucking pushover?

“I’m Karkat. Thank you for allowing me the pleasure of putting a name to your apparent genocidal destruction of all things natural. It will be the gossip of the day around the water cooler. I mean gosh, just wait until the ficus hears about this.” Dave smiles dumbly at you, and you get the impression that he didn’t hear anything you said after your name.

“So Karkat,” he drawls, his goofy smile quickly being replaced by his previous neutral expression, “Ya like plants?” God, was that a Bee Movie reference? That joke would have been too old even for the elderly woman you had been talking to. It’s that dead. The self-satisfied look on his face tells you that he knows that, too.

“Yes, I like plants. Have you seen where I work?” Truth is you only work here because you think flowers are romantic, but he doesn’t need to know that. Tending to and talking about flora has grown on you to the point where it’s like breathing, anyway, so your answer was basically true. You return to diligently pruning. Behind you, you can hear him scuffing his worn Converse sneakers (they looked like they were being held together by a single string) on the floor. He’s quiet for a while, you can hear him walking around, browsing the succulents you had shown him last time. For a moment, you pray he won’t take another. They don’t deserve to die such cruel deaths at the hands of such an incompetent monster. There’s a soft thud in the back of the store, and you look up to see he has chosen the peace lily you were deadheading the last time he was here. He’s waiting by the counter with it patiently. You nod and hurry over.

“It’s so quiet in here,” he says as you rush behind the counter, “Dont’cha wish there was like, music or something?”

“Yeah,” you say in an exhale, surprised that he noticed, “A lot of the time, actually.”

“It seems like it would get real fuckin’ boring.”

You nod. “It does.” He takes the lily, which he proclaims would be named Obama this time, and leaves. Now that he asked about it, the silence is even more crushing than usual.

* * *

 

The next Tuesday, like clockwork, Dave shows up again. This time, he arrives three entire hours before close. You would be lying if you said you weren’t genuinely shocked when you heard the jingle of the bell before you looked up and saw that it was him. He’s standing in the doorway, grinning at you like a wolf, and for a moment your heart thuds faster in your chest. The predatory smile he’s giving you is somewhat overwhelming. Fruitlessly, you attempt to will your pulse to slow down. You desperately try to stop your eyes from taking in the image of his cheekbones, illuminated from the sunlight outside the door. The stupid romantic in you flutters. Suddenly, he’s walking towards you, and your heartbeat grows somehow faster. This is when you notice why he’s grinning like a kid about to fucking dominate at laser tag. In his right hand was an extremely vintage looking boombox. Whatever moment that was happening before, causing your heart to beat rapidly and butterflies to attack your stomach lining, was completely ruined. Before you knew it you were laughing hysterically at him.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what early 90’s time travelling demon did you buy that piece of shit from?” you cackle loudly, wiping a forming tear from your eye. He smirks at you, setting the thing on the counter. It’s over a foot long, and when he set it down it made a loud thud, rattling the things around it from the sheer force of the impact.

“Laugh all you want Karkat, this shit is the illest!” he says, a goofy smile plastered across his face as he watches you lose your shit at his wording. By the time you calm down, he’s flipping a switch on the front of his dull silver brick. It starts playing a song you’ve never heard before. You realize almost immediately it’s a song he made, there’s no way it isn’t. There’s this sort of endearing amateur quality to it, similar to the way he presents himself. It has clear techno influences, and it reminds you of the backtrack to rap songs you have heard, but it also was sort of its own genre of music entirely. You find it oddly entrancing. It’s like he shoved a tape recorder in his fucking soul. Dave was just some customer you had met the week before, you barely knew him, but you knew enough to know that this song is him. He is watching you, you know it, and you’re sure you have the stupidest awestruck look on your face, but you can’t fucking help it. This is cool, and you are impressed. The stupid romantic in the back of your head whispers that you wish he would make a song like this for you. You quickly shove it away, using that lede to pull yourself out of your trance.

“This is really cool,” you say softly.

“Thanks. I made it.” His grin grows even wider. You almost respond with ‘I know’.

For the rest of your shift, the two of you sit in a pair of garden chairs and listen to the music he made. You talk some, about inconsequential things. You find out Obama's passed on to the land of the dead, and you set him up with a second peace lily. This time you give him the strictest most concise set of instructions you can to ensure the plants survival. He names the lily Plant, which you have to admit is the dumbest fucking thing you’ve ever heard. You also tell him about how you're studying online, explaining how you work six days a week so you can afford it on top of the rest of your bills. It turns out he does attend the same university as you, but in person, just as you thought. He's majoring in film, with a seemingly random minor in paleontology. He tells you he arranged his schedule so that he doesn't have classes Tuesdays and Fridays, and afterwards gives you the least graceful wink you've ever seen. After a while, you sit in a comfortable silence and just relax. You listen to his rambling and to the music, and how it mixes together, fitting like puzzle pieces. The boombox, you are told, is a gift, along with his so called ‘fire mixtape, Karkat’. He stays with you until you lock up the store, and afterwards offers to walk you home. You turn him down, but while you walk alone, you walk with a smile on your face.

* * *

You don’t expect to see Dave the next day, especially since you’ve now been informed of his schedule, so when he steps through the door with a sling on his arm and a smirk plastered across his face, your first reaction is confusion. Your second reaction is also confusion, but about how the fuck he got hurt in the 15 hours since you last saw him.

“What the fuck happened to you?” you say angrily, attempting to catch his eye through his glasses. He laughs. It’s warm and affectionate and it makes you feel strange. The sling cradles his arm, navy blue against the lighter wash of his signature denim jacket, the angle slightly off. Even with your limited medical knowledge you can tell he’s wearing it incorrectly. He looks at you sheepishly, and you step towards him, pointing an accusatory finger in his face. “It hasn’t even been a day, are you some kind of spectacular idiot?”

“It’s icy,” he says quietly, the corners of his mouth twitching with mirth.

“So yes?!” you retort sharply. Laughter fills the room as he bursts, nodding and doubling over. It’s contagious and soon you find yourself laughing too, rubbing the heels of your hands over your eyes. After you both catch your breath, he puts the hand of his good arm on your shoulder. It’s warm and large and your skin under your stupid black work shirt tingles with the sensation. You have a sobering realization that he is unbelievably handsome. Having his full attention on you makes the pit of your stomach slosh and burn with a strange feeling, and you’re thinking that maybe Dave is the kind of person you’ve needed in your life for a while. Maybe if he asked you out to dinner and a movie, you would maybe, hypothetically, be excited about it. There’s a long, tense moment of silence. He’s staring at you, you can feel it, and you stare back into the deep black that is his sunglasses. Your heart is pounding in your ears as he leans in slightly. You think for a second that he’s going to kiss you. Just as you’re about to close your eyes, he says with a small chuckle,

“I killed Plant.” He simpers at you, and you scoff, somewhat embarrassed, stepping aside.

“This is a new fucking record of plant killing. You must be some sort of new level of fucking stupid. How is it even possible to kill a peace lily that fast?”

“It’s icy,” he repeats, and you have to physically restrain yourself from smacking him in the back of his fucking head.

“Did you leave it outside?!”

“You never told me not to!”

“Oh my God,” you groan, covering your face with your hands. “I thought that was fucking implied- it's a tropical plant!”

He’s laughing again, and it takes massive amounts of self control not to laugh as well. After you two banter (argue, not leaving a tropical plant outside in the winter is common fucking sense) for a while, you concede and return to your work, outwardly willing him to go away, but inwardly hoping he’ll stay and keep you company. The boombox was already pulsing from the cashwrap, his ‘fire mixtape, Karkat’ having kept you company throughout the morning. He nods his head knowingly to the beat as he feigns interest in some potted camellias you have growing on a table near the center of the store. The automatic watering spray comes on at some point, and you bite your lip to keep from snorting when he jumps back in surprise. He looks slightly embarrassed afterwards, which makes it even harder not to bust a gut laughing at him, but you manage. While he politely pretends to browse, you labor at your work bench behind the register, meticulously transfer growing plants from their small cardboard prisons to actual terracotta pots, ready to be sold, or rather, inevitably not sold, and simply just tended to by you until late spring when you start getting actual customers again. Eventually your focus is broken by the sound of him jumping up onto the cashwrap’s counter to sit. You shoot him a glare and he smiles like an idiot and you wonder how the fuck he got up there with one fucking arm. His gangly legs dangle over the edge, the lip of the counter digging into the bend in his knees. He kicks them back and forth, all the while continuing to look at you. Apparently getting bored of that, he speaks up.

“Soooo….what’s your favorite movie?” he asks, punctuating it with another swing of his leg.

“My favorite movie?” you ask back incredulously. You rub your gloved hands together in a fruitless attempt to get some of the dirt off, before leaning back against the rough wood of the bench. “That’s fucking random, why do you ask?”

“Hmmmm,” Dave hums, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling, “Well you see it’s like,” he waves his good hand through the air, looking back at you, “I feel like your favorite movie says a helluva lot about you, right? You can learn everything about someone based on their favorite movie.” That’s shockingly meaningful, you think. You happen to be quite the film buff yourself, so you respect that. With a nod, you straighten your posture, and answer.

“50 First Dates.”

“50 First Dates?”

“Yes, 50 First Dates,” you repeat.

“With Adam Sandler?” he asks breathlessly, his voice raising an octave.

“Is there any other version of 50 First Dates?”

“Oh my fuckin’ God, Karkat. That’s amazing. Fuckin’ Adam Sandler! Are you even real?” He’s full on laughing for what feels like the billionth time today, and your cheeks stain red with annoyance and that strange fluttering feeling.

“I thought you were a film student, you should know it’s a good fucking movie!” you say defensively. He teeters dangerously close to falling off the counter, finishing up his laughing fit, and looking at you with nauseatingly affectionate eyes.

“It suits you,” he says with a shit eating grin and you throw a packet of seeds at him.

That night after you close up you decide to allow Dave and his newest doomed plant, named 2000 Toyota Corolla to walk you home. It’s already dark out, the blackness of winter and the chill in the air making the city feel expansive and threatening. Having Dave beside you for your brief walk is a strange comfort. You wish he didn’t have his stupid arm in a sling, you would hold his hand.

* * *

 

He ends up hanging around the store for the entirety of your next two shifts, claiming the doctor had him on bedrest before the surgery for his wrist, but he was bored and he was still ‘basically resting’. You don’t say it, but you appreciate his company, so you let the stupidity slide. He’s probably safer with you anyway, seeing as his medical knowledge is absolutely nonexistent and he’s truly the most accident prone person you’ve had the pleasure of meeting (you get the vibe that if he wanted to be he could probably be quite graceful, though). As a result, you spend massive amounts of time together, and you learn Dave virtually never stops talking. In return, he learns that you also virtually never stop talking. Distantly, you feel bad for any customers that have walked in during your louder, more aggressive, and needlessly raunchy, discussions. On this particular day, Friday, it’s snowing outside, and he’s been sitting cross-legged on the cold concrete floor (you know it’s cold because he’s complained about it several times already) writing furiously in a spiral bound notebook.

“Making comics,” he says when you question him, “you wouldn’t understand, Karkat. Irony is a smooth lady, you're far too prickly for her, with your motherfuckin' cactus ass.” You roll your eyes and ignore that particular remark, and afterwards the two of you spend most of the day in a comfortable quiet. At one point he gathers himself an aloe plant (he names it Lil' P), to replace his dearly departed 2000 Toyota Corolla (may God rest his soul) before returning to his spot to continue diligently drawing his comic.

After an unusual few hours of silence, he suddenly snaps his head up from the notebook, his eyes boring holes into your back until you turn to look at him.

“Yes?” you ask, already exasperated

He looks at you with such burning purpose that you almost balk under the stare. Your cheeks heat up and you compulsively swipe your bangs into place, silently ridiculing yourself immediately after. When did you start caring what Dave thinks of you? Think of the innocent plants he'd murdered! Think of 2000 Toyota Corolla! But Karkat, the other side of you argues, you can talk to him for hours, and you have to admit even with his stupid glasses obscuring his face he's far from bad looking. Plus, he’s funny, he gets your weird sense of humor, and he brought you a boombox, that’s like, romantic as fuck.

"...your family," he says, and you're yanked out of your mental argument with yourself and back into the present where you realize you have absolutely no idea what he just asked you.

"What?" you respond sheepishly and his look of intense concentration doesn't falter even a little.

"Do you like your family?" he asks you again, loud and clearly enunciated instead of slurred and mumbled, like most of what he says is, thanks to his damn accent.

"Ah, well," you lean forward onto the counter, taking off a glove to rest your chin in your hand. There's a moment of hesitation, where you stare out the window and think through your wording, and he is surprisingly patient. "It's complicated," you finally finish, saying it as more of an exhale than anything. He nods contemplatively, bringing the end of his pen up to tap against his lip. You try desperately not to stare at his mouth.

"Yeah, I feel that," he says with another poignant nod. "So then all you do when you're not here is watch shitty Adam Sandler movies and work on your degree?" You sigh, it sounds embarrassing when he puts it like that.

"Where are you going with this, Dave?" you ask, turning your head in your palm to look at him. He has a small smile on his face.

"Well you see. I happen to know, that you happen to know, a certain someone. He's a really great guy, and he hates asking for things, you know, cus he's so like, great. Like Tony the tiger, with four whole ass r's. Grrrreat. Enjoy him with milk, you know, with a lil' banana and-"

"You're rambling."

"Right, well. Yes. You see. They won't let me drive myself home from surgery tomorrow and I-"

"You wanted to drive yourself home?!" You yell a bit and he flinches, you give yourself your regular mental reminder to quiet down.

"Yeah, well I don't have anyone else to drive me so-"

"Shut up," you interrupt him again, "Of course I'll drive your loopy ass home. Don't be fucking stupid." He full on grins at that and you swear you're going to go into cardiac arrest.

"You're the best, Karkat," he says, and it's so genuine it hurts.

* * *

 

As promised the next day you're pulling into the parking lot of the hospital Dave told you he was at. He had texted you furiously that morning, way more transparent about his nerves than he intended to be. It doesn't matter either way to you, you would be nervous too. You walked into the imposing building feeling a bit out of place, locating the desk as quickly as possible, and then picking your way through to the same day surgery PACU, where Dave was still in bed recovering from his drugs. A dingy yellow-ish blanket was draped across him haphazardly, and he was wiggling a bit like a fish, making the nurse attending him laugh. Momentarily you take in how like him that is, fucked out of his mind on drugs and still trying to get other people to smile at him.

After he stops wiggling, you pointedly clear your throat, pointing at him apathetically and telling the nurse, "I'm here for my idiot." Dave just grins up at you dumbly, raising his arm that's not packed down to his chest with 800 layers of bandages towards you in a sort of grabby gesture.

"Karkat," he says gently, and you feel your heart in your throat, seeing him so unguarded. He turns his head towards the nurse, but his eyes don't leave you. "This guy," he pauses for dramatic effect, mocking your pointed finger from before weakly with one of his own, "This guy is a fuckin' wizard with garden shears. You should see it, guy could make the fuckin' Sistine Chapel out of a shrub, man, it's straight up bananas," he slurs proudly. You consider smacking your face into the nearest wall as the nurse chuckles. She begins to debrief you on his care instructions, which you are to pass on to Dave when he's in the state of mind to hear them, but she is interrupted by him loudly fake coughing. You raise an eyebrow at him and he stage whispers to her, "He's cute when he's concentrating ain't he? Usually people look all- like- constip-constap-constipapted, yea, but he looks so..." he flops his arm around, "Je ne sais quoi." Your face fucking burns. Your heart fucking burns. Holy fuck.

"You're so high off your ass you can't say constipated, but je ne sais quoi came out without a hitch?" you snap, half anger, half amusement, full burning embarrassment. He hums in response and the nurse goes back to her instructions. You can barely hear her speaking, your pulse in your ears like the tide rising and falling in its unbearable static symphony. Thank God she also gives you a paper with the instructions because you retain absolutely none of the information. You try to get control of yourself, repeating “you’re an adult, Karkat” in the back of your head like a mantra while you wait for a still very high Dave to get out of his hospital gown. Shit like this still gets your heart going like a high schooler in general, but you wonder if maybe it could also be something about Dave. Something about him just seems...different to you, as disgustingly (perfectly) cliche as that is. Once dressed, he waddles over to you, the corners of his mouth turned up in a gentle, peaceful smile. He holds his hand out expectantly, like a child, for you to lead him with. You make a sound that’s somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle as you look at it, before finally surrendering to yourself and taking it.

When you pull into the covered parking lot of his complex it’s immediately obvious to you that you can not expect Dave to walk up to his apartment alone. He’s staring at you with a glazed look on his face that actually seems frighteningly close to the face of someone who is about to cry. You panic slightly as soon as that registers and you shut off your engine before turning to face him.

“Hey, idiot,” you say softly, “I’m going to walk you up to your apartment. Okay?” He nods, and you nod in return, popping your back and then clicking and removing your seat belt. You exit the car and walk around to the other side, where Dave has not moved at all and remains frozen in place. His wrist is pressed firmly to his chest in his sling, his hair disheveled sticking into the air, and his flannel shirt is half undone. Even so, his sunglasses remain firmly on his nose. With a firm yank (stupid fuckin’ piece of shit car) you open his door for him. He turns his head toward you blankly and you huff, leaning over him to remove his seatbelt. He smells of hospital and sweat and Dave and the combination is sour and acrid and grossly endearing.

You help him out of the car with his good hand and he begins to lead you towards the stairs as though moving automatically. He starts up the stairs at a steady pace, not stopping, and somewhere in the back of your head you vaguely remember that he lives on the top floor of this fucking massive building. That fuckin’ sucks. You’re panting by the time you reach the top. He stops in front of his door and you wheeze. Unceremoniously he shoves his key into the lock before turning to you.

“This is kind of a weird first date, ain’t it?” he slurs, his accent almost drowning out his words, and you splutter. If you could fucking breathe you have no idea how you would respond to that. His hand rests gently on the knob of his front door. He’s smiling at you happily, looking perhaps the most coherent you have seen him today. You smile back, hesitating for a moment before raising your own hand to place it affectionately on his back. The worn, loose feeling of his shirt against your hand is strangely calming to you, and weirdly reassures you that this is where you’re meant to be. Dave stays still for a while, and you find yourself comfortable like that, but eventually the stillness is broken. He turns his key in the lock and the door pops open.

You are immediately dizzy. The contents of his apartment swim in your mind. Cords run across the floor, criss-crossing their way from the kitchen to the living room and then down the hall. Posters and framed vinyls adorn his walls, aside amateur photographs of friends and street signs and everything in between. What grabs your attention most though, pulling your mind out of your body and freezing your limbs ice solid, is a small table at the far end of the apartment. The table is beneath an open window, basking in sunlight, and on top of it sits every plant he has ever purchased from you. They are alive and well and maybe even healthier than how they were before he bought them. You feel yourself sway as the implications of this discovery flood your head. Far away in your mind, you’re vaguely aware of Dave beside you, gingerly laying himself down on his couch. You barely hear his whining for his medication, and you don’t feel yourself uncapping the bottle and retrieving water for him.

“Sorry I lied about the plants,” he says, his voice hoarse from dehydration, “I wanted an excuse to come and see you.” You nod, handing him the pill and water.

“It’s ok,” you say. He grins.

When you’ve somewhat come back to your senses, you make certain that Dave will be able to look after himself, knowing that in an ideal situation you could stay. You spot a blanket across the room, laid over a chair, and drape it over him. Quietly, you step into his kitchen and search his cabinet for some food you could leave out for him, eventually settling on pudding cups you find in his fridge. You leave the snack along with some water and the correct amount of pills on his coffee table for him beside a note telling him when to take them (which you read on the label, since you hadn’t listened to the poor nurse). Afterwards you let yourself out of his apartment, locking the door behind you, and take down the stairs submerged in your own mind.

* * *

 

You don’t see Dave for at least a week after your discovery at his apartment, and you only text on and off. He is recovering well, he’s told you, and you miss him terribly. On the rare occasions that a customer enters you feel yourself perk up like a dog, looking frantically in the hopes that it may be him. You miss his smile and his laugh and the dumb things he talks about when he forgets that you’re listening. Often you wonder (hope) that he misses you too.

When Dave does walk in you feel as though you’re going to cry. He’s got a padded sling on, incorrectly, and his face is lit up in a painfully genuine smile when you catch his eye. Without hesitation you trot over to him, placing a hand on the arm on his good side. He looks down at it, somewhat wide-eyed, then back up at you. You hold his gaze fiercely, heart pounding in your ears. You’ve waited all week for this, you’ve waited everyday since the day this idiot walked into your store, if you’re telling the truth. Dave raises an eyebrow and you lean in, pressing your mouth against his. He inhales sharply through his nose, a moment of hesitation before he brings his good hand up against your cheek, leaning forward to bring you into a second kiss. After a moment you break away, pressing your face into the crook of his neck.

“I’m glad your son is alive,” you say quietly.

“Huh?”

“Snoop Dogg. I’m glad he’s alive.”

Dave laughs and it’s bright and clear and you feel at home.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know how i feel about this story but it is what it is. thank you to the people on twitter who suggested names for dave's plants. just edited it to give it a lower case title because i'm hip.


End file.
